Follow UsCricket West Indies (CWI), on July 15 (Tuesday), convened an emergency meeting to review the 3-0 loss against Australia in which the side got bowled out for the second-lowest total in Test history, but cricket in the country has been in a downward spiral for some time now.
West Indies cricket, for the past decade, has been handicapped by players choosing club over country, and the latest is former captain Nicholas Pooran, who earlier this year announced his international retirement at the age of 29.
According to former captain Brian Lara, however, the fault does not lie one bit with the players. He believes that CWI have simply not done enough to incentivise players to prioritise international cricket.
“You have a lot of guys who are deciding on what to do with their careers. You have your aggressive players like Pooran who retired at 29. And honestly, it’s pretty clear why they did. There are five or six leagues around the world, and they’re able to make a substantial amount of money playing in them,” Lara said on the ‘Stick to Cricket’ Podcast.
“I have no problem with that. The truth is, I don’t think the West Indies Cricket Board or the administration has done anything meaningful to keep players loyal to West Indies cricket, unlike what boards in countries like England, Australia, or even India have done.
“So naturally, our players are going to look elsewhere. And when you see players like Kane Williamson or even South Africans making similar choices, you understand that these guys are just trying to provide for their families.”
Lara further noted how, of late, playing for the West Indies has almost become a stepping stone for younger players to move to franchise cricket and earn big contracts.
“As far as West Indies cricket is concerned, this is one of our biggest challenges. In the past, we played first-class cricket—and some of us even county cricket—with the goal of making it into the West Indies team.
“Now, it's almost the reverse. Players are using the West Indies team as a platform—a stepping stone—to secure T20 contracts elsewhere. And to be fair, that’s not the players’ fault,” Lara said.
Lara is among those invited by CWI for the emergency meeting to dissect the humiliating defeat at home against Australia.